Presently known wristwatch guards in many varieties serve the general purpose of protecting a wristwatch face from scarring or other damage arising from contact with other objects and, in recent times, the more particular purpose of providing for appearance variation of a wristwatch in the area of fads among the younger set.
In achieving such general purpose, guards for wristwatches of the prior art provide a member for releasable securement to a watch and defining a buffer therefor. With respect to the more particular purpose, such releasably securable member may provide the appearance variation as well as the buffer function.
By separate statement to be filed in with this application under 37 CFR 1.197 and 1.98, prior art patents depicting heretofore known forms of wristwatch guards are identified. Such devices fall into two categories, one in which the guard is securable to the watch by virtue of flexible parts of the guard which are cooperative with the watch band and another in which the guard is securable to the watch by rigid structure engaging the casing of the watch, without having any structure cooperative with the watch band.
From applicant's point of view, the former type of device has advantage over the latter device type in such areas as ease of packaging and density of shipment, but heretofore known varieties of the former type of device are considered to have disadvantages in respect of use and handling characteristics, particularly in not definitively associating watch guard structural portions to functions to be met, e.g., the functions of respectively engaging the watch casing and the watchband.